When Darkness Falls

by James Grippando

  Detective Barber had twenty years on the force, and he was probably about six months away from perfecting his Joe Friday monotone. Miami was rarely cold enough for a trench coat, so the chilly weather was like costume day for Barber. He was standing at the counter near the cash register, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, his fleshy brow furrowed into the anatomical equivalent of the Spanish Steps. A glossy color photograph, Falcon’s mug shot, lay flat atop the glass. Last night’s desk attendant was leaning on one elbow, staring down at it, studying the image. It was Barber’s standard interrogation tactic. Never ask the witness to describe someone out of the blue. Put the photo in front of him, let it jog his memory. “Ever seen this guy before?” said Barber.

  The young man scratched at the tattooed dragon on the left side of his shaved head, just above the ear, directly below the scalp ring. “Nope.”

  It wasn’t the response that Alicia or the detective had expected. “You sure?” said Barber.

  “Dude, I think I’d remember this loser if I saw him.”

  Barber kept his composure. Alicia resisted the urge to jump in with her own line of questioning. Standing on the sidelines with a virtual gag on her mouth was proving much more difficult than anticipated.

  The computer in question was in pod number three. The crime-scene investigators were proceeding in their usual methodical fashion, dusting for prints and searching for other physical evidence that might identify the person who had sent Alicia the e-mail.

  “Do you remember who was using that computer last night?” asked Barber.

  “What time?”

  Barber fumbled for a copy of the e-mail. Alicia filled in the blank for him: “The e-mail was sent from your computer number three at ten twenty-two p.m.”

  Barber shot her a look, as if to say “No talking, that was our agreement.”

  “Ten twenty-two p.m.,” he repeated.

  “Don’t remember exactly. But I think it was a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah. An older woman.”

  Barber shoved the photograph toward the clerk again. “You sure it wasn’t this guy?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Barber seemed annoyed. “Can you describe for me the last three customers you dealt with last night?”

  “Sure. One was a woman, and-Uh. No, two were women, and the last one was a man. I think. I don’t know. It was either a man or a woman.”

  “That certainly narrows it down,” said Barber.

  Alicia waited for him to follow up, but the detective was suddenly more concerned with the text message on his vibrating cell. Alicia asked the clerk, “Do your customers sign a log book or anything like that?”

  “No, they just pay by the hour and go.”

  “The woman who rented pod number three, did she pay with a credit card? Anything to create a written record?”

  “Uh-uh. We don’t take credit cards for anything under twenty dollars. I’m pretty sure I had only one credit card transaction all night.”

  Barber was still reading from his text message, so Alicia forged ahead. “Do you have a security camera on the premises? Could we get a look at her that way?”

  “No. We respect our customers’ privacy.” Translation: How would you like it if someone watched you surf the porn sites?

  Barber was suddenly drumming his fingers across the glass counter-top. “Anything else you’d like to ask, officer?”

  Alicia backed away. She wasn’t trying to upstage him, but she could tell that his heart wasn’t in her case. Barber was a top-notch homicide detective, with plenty of homicide cases that needed his full attention. He was assigned to a stalking case only because Alicia was the mayor’s daughter. Alicia didn’t like it any more than he did, but if he wasn’t going to pursue the obvious questions, she would. Perhaps she’d pushed it a little too far. “You go right ahead, detective. Sorry.”

  Barber said, “Can you describe this older woman for us, kid? The one who rented pod number three?”

  The clerk made a face, as if it hurt to search his memory for something that happened all of fourteen hours ago. “Not really. Hispanic, maybe. Kind of short. Just another customer, you know. We get lots of customers.”

  Barber asked a few more follow-up questions, none of any consequence. He ended by passing the clerk his card and asking him to call if anything came to mind.

  “I hope I was helpful,” said the clerk.

  “You were, thank you,” said Alicia.

  Barber checked with the CSI team, which had about another hour of work on computer pod number three. They could handle it on their own. Barber gave the signal, and Alicia followed him outside to the sidewalk.

  “You think the boy’s covering for somebody?” she asked.

  “No,” said Barber. “I don’t think he pays much attention to who comes and who goes from the place. It’s just not important to him.”

  “You don’t actually think it was an old woman who stole my purse and sent me that e-mail, do you?”

  “Could have been a woman who sent you the message. I have no idea who stole your purse.”

  “Are you saying two people might be involved in this?”

  “Look, Alicia. You ask a lot of questions, and that’s a good thing in this business. But see, the trick is to ask people who might possibly know the answers. How the hell do I know if there’s two people involved or not?”

  He started walking toward his car. Alicia followed. She was thinking about what the clerk had told them. “It just doesn’t add up. Someone steals my lipstick, and then a little old lady sends me an e-mail saying that it’s only out of love that she seeks me?”

  “The kid could have been confused.”

  “What if he’s not? What if it was a woman who sent me the message?”

  “Hey, stranger things have happened, honey.”

  She climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. Barber started the car and backed out of the parking space. Alicia looked out the window toward the Red Bird Copy Center.

  “Not to me,” she said as they drove away. Honey.

  chapter 9

  M ayor Raul Mendoza didn’t like what Jack Swyteck was telling him.

  “This is my daughter we’re talking about,” the mayor said into the telephone.

  “I’m definitely sympathetic to that,” said Swyteck. “But I would see it no differently if we were talking about a member of my own family.”

  The mayor sank back into his big leather chair at his office in Miami City Hall. Felipe, his trusted assistant and bodyguard, was seated in the armchair on the opposite side of the old teak desk. All of the mayor’s furniture was made of teak, a nautical decorating theme that, together with his corner-office view of the marina, only served to remind him that he never had time to sail anymore. He barely had time for anything that wasn’t official business. Except when it came to his daughter.

  Mendoza had always made time for Alicia, from her soccer games as a little girl-he never missed one-to her graduation from the police academy. He loved his wife, and they were still together and happy after twenty-nine years. Even after he was married, however, the concept of dying for someone else seemed a bit unreal, more like a melodramatic metaphor for the depth of one’s feelings than an actual commitment. That all changed with Alicia. When she was sick as an infant, he begged God to make him sick instead. When she cried, he couldn’t bear to hear it. When some homeless pervert was stalking her-well, all bets were off. It didn’t matter that the mayor was nearing the end of his term and facing an uphill battle for reelection. It didn’t matter that the fund-raising had to be done long before voters went to the polls, or that he had places to go, hands to shake, checks to cash. He was trying hard to be diplomatic with Falcon’s lawyer, but this was about his daughter’s safety, and he had little patience for anyone who refused to open his eyes and see things as any father would see them.

  The mayor said, “I know it’s unorthodox for the victim’s father to call the defens
e lawyer, but hear me out, please.”

  “It’s happened in other cases,” said Jack. “Worse cases.”

  “Then you understand how disappointed I must have been when the prosecutor called to tell me that you wouldn’t agree to revise the terms of release.”

  “This is nothing personal,” said Jack. “The law requires the prosecution to show some new facts to the judge, something that makes my client a greater flight risk or a greater danger to the community than originally thought.”

  “Your client continues to stalk my daughter. Isn’t that enough?”

  “If the prosecutor had evidence to support that claim, we’d be in court this afternoon.”

  Swyteck had hit the nail on the head. A defense lawyer had no way of knowing all the weaknesses in the state’s case, particularly at this early juncture, but the prosecutor had laid them out in painstaking detail for the mayor. Without anyone noticing, a homeless bum had to get inside an upscale Coral Gables bar, take a woman’s purse, and ditch it in the ladies’ room. The desk clerk at the copy center said it was a woman, not a man, who rented the computer that was used to send Alicia the e-mail. Falcon’s fingerprints were found nowhere, and the lone extraneous fingerprint on Alicia’s compact didn’t even match his.

  “You’re a very insightful attorney, Mr. Swyteck.”

  “In cases like this, it’s really just a matter of doing my job.”

  “And I imagine there is much discretion in that job description.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then why not agree to a restraining order that prevents your client from coming within five hundred yards of my daughter?”

  There was silence. He could sense that Swyteck wanted to agree. Was it possible-a criminal defense lawyer with a conscience? No way. Any inroads into the lawyer’s moral sensitivities were due entirely to the mayor’s persuasive powers. Damn, I’m good.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”

  That took the air right out of the mayor’s inflated ego. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not in my client’s interest.”

  “You want something in return? A little quid pro quo? Is that it?”

  “Mr. Mayor, I’m really not at all comfortable having this conversation with you.”

  “Seriously. If there is something you want, tell me.”

  Again, he could sense that Swyteck was struggling. The lawyer said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I can’t even imagine what must go through a parent’s mind when it comes to a child’s safety, even after she’s a grown adult. But we need to avoid these conversations. They will only feed the public perception that the case against my client is driven not by reasoned legal judgment but by raw emotion from the mayor’s office.”

  The mayor gnawed his lower lip. It was a good thing Swyteck wasn’t in the office with him. He might have clobbered him. “Thank you for that,” said the mayor. “I should have expected nothing less from a money launderer.”

  “Excuse me?” said Jack.

  “The ten-thousand-dollar bond your client posted. It’s no secret that you smuggled the cash out of the Bahamas.”

  “I didn’t smuggle anything,” said Jack. “And the reason there are no secrets surrounding the bond is precisely because I did everything above-board. My client has access to cash in the Bahamas. I set up a ten-thousand-dollar savings account in his name at his Bahamian bank. The money was sent by wire transfer, the necessary currency transaction reports were completed, and the feds were completely in the loop. End of story.”

  “No, it’s not the end of the story. Thanks to you, this won’t be over until that crazy son of a bitch comes after my daughter again. Then let’s see if you’re so smug.” He hung up the phone without saying good-bye, doing nothing to mask his disgust in the presence of his bodyguard. He rose and walked to the window. Not even the sailboats and the flat, blue-green waters of the bay could soothe him.

  Felipe said, “You want me to speak to this Swyteck?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said, still looking out the window.

  “You want me to pay Falcon a little visit?”

  The mayor turned to face him as he considered it, forcing a little smile. Felipe smiled back. Before long, the two men were grinning so broadly that the mayor could hardly contain his laughter. Felipe, too, was on the verge of laughter, though he clearly didn’t know why. “What’s so funny, boss?”

  “It just amazes me, how stupid you can be.”

  Felipe’s smile vanished. “What do you mean?”

  The mayor’s expression was deadly serious. “In the great American tradition of executive-office conversations that never happened, let me ask you two questions. One, isn’t it obvious what needs to be done?

  “Two, why on earth would you ask the mayor before doing it?”

  chapter 10

  J ack Swyteck liked to think of himself as a full-ser vice attorney, but he did not make house calls. That was the rule, which, like most rules, was swallowed by its exceptions. He did visit clients who were in jail, who didn’t have a car, or, apparently, who lived in a car.

  “You sure about these directions?” said Theo.

  Jack was leading the way down a footpath along the Miami River. A commuter train rambled along the track two hundred feet above them. A lazy tugboat churned downriver toward the bay, its wake breaking against a rusted, half-submerged barge. “Am I sure?” said Jack. “These directions rolled right off the lips of a clinically paranoid homeless stalker who threatened to throw himself off a bridge if the mayor’s daughter didn’t talk to him. Why would I question their accuracy?”

  Theo considered it, then said, “Do you speak Globalish?”

  “Do I speak what?”

  “Globalish. It’s the universal language of the homeless. Like Esperanto.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “You never heard of Esperanto? It was invented by some Polish dude, but it’s more like Spanish or Italian. A second language for everyone. That’s sort of what Globalish means. It’s English, combined with global, meaning worldwide, though it can also mean ‘great tits,’ depending on the context. Globalish. It’s probably what Falcon was speaking when he gave you the directions.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to respond. Theo had this uncanny ability to make no sense and make perfect sense at the same time.

  They kept walking. Earlier that morning, an unexpected phone call from the state attorney had lasted only a few minutes. Jack knew almost immediately that the prosecutor was bluffing. If the state could prove that Falcon was continuing to harass the mayor’s daughter, the prosecutor would have been in court faster than a bailiff could say “All rise.” Jack would not agree to a restraining order. The personal call from the mayor had made it considerably more difficult to maintain that position, but it was his job to put emotions aside and to act in his client’s interest. He still had a conscience, however. If his client was determined to continue breaking the law-if Falcon refused to give up his pursuit of Alicia Mendoza-then it was time for him to get a new lawyer. Jack had defended plenty of clients who had committed horrible crimes. Anyone who had a problem with that had no business being a criminal defense lawyer. It was something altogether different, however, to provide legal protection for someone who was steadily working his way up to the big kill.

  And that was his problem with Falcon.

  “We there yet?” said Theo.

  Jack ignored him. The Miami River stretched five and a half miles in a southeasterly direction, from the airport to downtown Miami, where it emptied into Biscayne Bay. Over the centuries, everything from raw sugar to raw sewage had floated down its tea-colored waters. At any time of day, you might find a ninety-foot yacht bound for the West Indies sharing the right of way with a rusted old container ship weighted down with cocaine. It was truly a working river, handling over four billion dollars a year in legal cargo, and a walk along its banks was like a slide show of Florida history. There were two-thousand-year-old relics fr
om the Tequesta Indians, warehouses and dockyards built by the Florida East Coast Railroad, an old fort from the Civil War, marinas, public parks, historic homes, mangroves, run-down apartment buildings, and even some pretty good restaurants.

  Theo grumbled to get Jack’s attention. “Hey, Swyteck. I said, ain’t we there yet?”

  “Almost.” The Big Fish restaurant was one of the landmarks Falcon had mentioned, so Jack knew they were getting close. Right on the river, it was actually one of Jack’s favorite lunch spots. It was nothing fancy, just a relaxing place to eat fresh dolphin, tuna, or shrimp ceviche while soaking up a historic stretch of river, a piece of old Miami where mariners from houseboats at the west end of the river sidled up alongside bankers and lawyers from the office towers to the east. Jack led Theo around the restaurant, past the trash bins and a nearby marina, where the combined odor of diesel fumes and discarded fish guts nearly gagged him. He imagined that Falcon had scored many a meal right here, rooting through the Dumpsters for leftover french fries or hush puppies.

  They passed beneath a bridge, and when they emerged on the other side, the river started its jog to the northwest. A brisk wind was blowing straight into their faces. Though the sun was shining, south Florida remained in the grip of an abnormal and persistent cold front. Every fifteen steps, Jack heard Theo huffing in an unsuccessful attempt to see his breath steam. Cold was a relative concept in Miami.

  “That must be it,” said Jack, pointing. There was an abandoned car about twenty feet off the riverbank, near an old warehouse-just as Falcon had described it.

  Instinctively, they slowed as they closed the last twenty yards, caution in their steps. The car was little more than a burned-out metal shell. All of the windows were gone, including the windshield. The steering wheel and front seat were missing as well. The backseat was still in place, but it had been slashed many times over, and the stuffing was coming out.